Toronto to study all options for crumbling Gardiner Expressway

Toronto’s budget committee broadened the list of possible options for the crumbling Gardiner Expressway, recommending that city staff report back on the possibility of selling, leasing or burying the critical artery.

The terms of study, still to be approved by city council, also apply to its less controversial neighbour the Don Valley Parkway and stem from an idea floated by downtown Councillor Adam Vaughan, who says the city should look at selling the roads as a way to finance escalating repair costs.

He believes Toronto could make $3-to $4-billion on each highway, in turn giving a private firm the ability to impose tolls. Depending on how the deal is structured, Mr. Vaughan believes the city would either have a windfall of sale proceeds, or a share of tolls to put into transit expansion.

The Gardiner has emerged as the most controversial issue of the 2013 budget. On Friday, another chunk of concrete peeled off the underbelly of the highway, near Rees Street and onto Lake Shore Boulevard. No one was injured.

It’s going to be a safe roadway

Amid revelations that an eastern stretch has just six good years left, councillors will grapple in the new year with a plan to spend $505-million over the next 10 years on Gardiner repairs. The cost has raised the idea of dismantling some of it again, but an environmental assessment looking into that possibility would have to be restarted.

“I want to assure Torontonians we are going to fix whatever needs to be fixed on the Gardiner and I don’t view it as good money after bad,” said Budget Chief Mike Del Grande. “It’s going to be a safe roadway.”

But its future will be a hotly debated item once city staff report back on the various options in May. Councillor James Pasternak, the budget committee member who urged that the leasing option be considered, cast the sale of the Gardiner and the DVP as a “risky game.”

“If those were off-loaded to private hands, it could strangle opportunities, decision making for the city for generations,” he said.

Councillor Peter Milczyn also rejected a sale, but said a lease is worth exploring. Councillor John Parker suggested looking at the tunnel option, which he said was only intended to apply to the Gardiner. Councillor Doug Ford, budget committee vice chairman, has long said the city should enlist the private sector to build a tunnelled alternative to the Gardiner, which could be tolled, while keeping the existing structure free.

“I’m in favour of exploring. What is the cost of tunnelling, what is the cost of putting a double decker, a triple decker like they have in New York? Let’s find out the cost,” said Mr. Ford, who congratulated Mr. Vaughan for having “taken a page out of my playbook” when it comes to public-private partnerships. “Maybe he got hit over the head over the weekend, maybe a coconut fell on his head and he realized, ‘hey, the only way I can get things going …’ ” he said, before his assistant interjected.

Mr. Vaughan, for his part, expressed skepticism about burying the Gardiner, saying some of the money generated would be better spent on transit, and not exclusively on building a new road. “This is about building a better city,” he said. The idea, he insisted, has nothing to do with better positioning him for a potential bid for the mayor’s chair.

The budget committee also endorsed the budget chief’s recommendation to tweak the property tax hike in 2013 to 2% from 1.95% and “meet people part of the way.” That would generate about $1.15-million, which the committee earmarked for student nutrition programs, the cash-strapped Toronto Botanical Gardens, lawn bowling clubs, community grants and local arts groups in North York and the east end. The rising value of property in Toronto combined with a policy at the city to reduce commercial property tax rates means that the average house will see a 2.51% tax jump. Mr. Del Grande hoped his proposal would satisfy his colleagues.

“If at the end of the day council wants to blow $5, $10, $20, $50-million, that’s them,” said the budget chief. “I can tell you guaranteed — guaranteed — for sure they won’t have me anymore as the budget chair. I have no interest at all under that scenario.”

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